Anish Kapoor has dismissed criticism of his Olympic sculpture, the
ArcelorMittal Orbit, claiming that nobody liked the Eiffel Tower either when
it was first built.

The £22.7 million tower, which is twice the height of Nelson’s Column, has been likened to an “overgrown maypole”, a “turd on the plaza” and “a contorted mass of entrails”.

Even Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London and the man who commissioned the work, refers to it as “the hubble bubble”.

Unveiling the tower to the world’s press, Kapoor said: “You know, the Eiffel Tower was hated by everybody for a good many years - 50 years or something like that - and now it’s a mainstay of how we understand Paris.

“It’s controversial and that’s a place to start. Discomfort is okay.”

The tower stands 115 metres (377 ft) high and has two observation floors. Visitors - initially restricted to those with tickets for the London 2012 Games - ascend in a lift and descend via the spiral staircase that snakes around the structure.

Explaining the tower’s wonky appearance, he said: “We wanted to make something that was a kind of deconstruction of the tower. Towers are almost always symmetrical - this is an asymmetrical tower. It has a particular refusal, in a way, of a singular image. It’s all about walking around it.”

Kapoor’s other public commissions include the well-received Cloud Gate in Chicago’s Millennium Park, a giant sculpture nicknamed ‘The Bean’.

Cecil Balmond, co-designer of the tower, also defended the project.

He said: “I remember reading the hoo-ha about St Paul’s - nobody wanted a dome on a church, they were used to a spire.

“What you’re looking at here is a completely new language.”

However, Oliver Wainwright of Building Design magazine was unimpressed.

Wainwright said: “To me, it represents the archetypal ‘turd on the plaza’ [a phrase used to describe municipal sculpture that is insensitive to its surroundings].

“It’s a whole contorted mass of entrails, as though the intestines of some strange steel monster have been stretched out.

“The way it towers over the stadium is particularly objectionable because the venues in the Olympic Park are models of lean, stripped-back engineering.

“The main stadium is the lightest ever of its kind and uses steel from recycled gas pipes. And here’s the Orbit, 2,000 tons of steel which is 20 times the roof of the velodrome.

“It’s just an obnoxious statement and a totem pole to the richest man in the UK.”

The tower is named after Lakshmi Mittal, chairman of steel giant ArcelorMittal and Britain’s richest man with an estimated family fortune of £12.7 billion.

He put up £19.6 million of the funding, with the remaining £3.1 million supplied by the Greater London Authority.

Boris Johnson has described the tower as “a piece of truly spectacular modern British art”. He said: “It would have boggled the minds of the Romans. It would have dwarfed the aspirations of Gustave Eiffel, and it will certainly be worthy of the best show on earth in the greatest city on earth.”

The tower will open to all as a visitor attraction but not until Easter 2014 - when the Games are over, the site will be closed for a £490 million redevelopment to render it “more urban and public-friendly”.

Entering the tower will cost £15 for adults and £7 for children and senior citizens. The prices were set by London 2012 organisers and Kapoor has criticised the pricing as "a hell of a lot of money".

He called for a "more democratic" pricing structure in 2014 when the tower is open to the wider public.